Without limitation, the following is provided in the context of fabricating ultra-thin semiconductor devices such as, e.g., power MOSFET circuits. Wafer backside grinding (BSG) is conventionally employed to reduce the original thickness of a semiconductor wafer after device fabrication and passivation. The profile of a wafer is reduced to a desired thickness suitable for assembling dies (obtained after wafer singulation step) on substrate packages as well as to ensure proper electrical operation of certain types of semiconductor devices, e.g., power management devices. Additionally, such ultra-thin power management devices also require backside metallization after backside grinding.
It is known that semiconductor devices may include one or more backside metal layers for forming a good Ohmic contact to the underlying substrate. As the advances in the design of integrated circuits (ICs) continue to take place, including ever-shrinking line geometries fabricated on increasing wafer diameters, improvements in backside preparation are also being continually sought.